Susie Eckelcamp, vice chair of the Missouri Republican Party, participated in a conference call this afternoon — along with a regional spokeswoman for the McCain-Palin campaign and a spokesman for the Republican National Committee — to decry what they call “Barack Obama’s smears against Governor Sarah Palin.”

Their call was followed by a news conference at the GOP campaign office in Maryland Heights held by the Missouri Women for McCain Coalition.

Both activities were aimed at jabbing the Democrats over their repeated disparaging use of the word “lipstick.”

In particular, Eckelcamp and McCain spokeswoman Wendy Reimann (joined by RNC spokesman Chris Taylor) asserted that Obama’s comment Tuesday about “lipstick on a pig’‘ was “very offensive” and clearly aimed at GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Eckelcamp said that the statement was also evidence of sexism.

Obama and his campaign say the context of his comment dealt with proposals of GOP presidential nominee John McCain, and were not aimed at Palin at all.

Taylor contended that the context — less than two weeks after Palin used her own “lipstick” joke in her convention speech — made clear the Obama’s comment was aimed at her.

He said the chuckles from Obama’s audience clearly indicated they saw a Palin link.

Taylor also criticized U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan’s “lipstick” moment at Tuesday’s event featuring Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden. Taylor said he doubted that Carnahan would have made such a comment if McCain’s running mate was Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, instead of Palin.

The trio was asked about the Youtube videos that show McCain using the same “lipstick on a pig” comment in reference to the healthcare proposal of then-Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton.

The Republicans say the context was different.

Here’s one of the videos: